


Ian Gets His Ass Into Therapy -- Finally

by fluffypuppymojo



Series: Post Season 7: Mexico [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 21:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9142831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffypuppymojo/pseuds/fluffypuppymojo
Summary: How Ian Gallagher comes to start therapy -- FINALLY!





	1. Ian Gets Back to Chicago

**Author's Note:**

> Ian has needed therapy for a long ass time, so I am finally getting him in there.
> 
> This is a little telling, not showing, sorry! Future chapters will be more showing, not telling.
> 
> I hope. 
> 
> I'm new to this. 
> 
> Forgive me.

As Ian watched him at the border crossing, his heart beat furiously, and he couldn't breathe until that moment when he realized the guards were letting Mickey through. Only then could he breathe, the joy and elation that Mickey was free, Ian’s eyes shedding tears that he made it. And then he watched until he couldn't see even the green of the car anymore and he wondered why in fuck he hadn't figured out some way to stay in touch. Because maybe the two of you couldn't be together, but he loved Mickey Milkovich, and he'd want to hear from him.

 

Ian hitched a ride into Laredo and found a bus station to make the final trek back to Chicago.

 

He looked in his bag and saw the full bottles of 3 prescriptions, and remembered how he'd gone to the pharmacy uncertain if he'd be gone for as long as he wanted to be prepared to be gone. He'd convinced them to give him as large a refill as they could – 90 days, as it turns out – and got information about transferring prescriptions to other pharmacies in other countries. Just in case.

 

He settled into the Greyhound seat, feeling the rawness of his upper lip, remembering kissing Mickey, and closed his eyes, sighing deeply. His words from a few days before, “I can’t get him out of my head,” never seemed more appropriate than at this moment.

 

When he got the text from Lip telling him their mother Monica was dead, he thought, “yeah, that about fits.” He texted back, “be home soon,” and closed his eyes to try to sleep a little during the long bus ride. He was tired and sad, but sure he’d made the right decision.

 

After he arrived back home in Chicago, Ian dealt with his mother’s death, family stuff, the funeral. He laid awake that first night realizing he’d at one time said he’d been working the past few days he’d been gone (when he’d actually been with Mickey), and then at another time said he’d called in sick the same past few days. No one had caught that. Lucky, he thought. He didn’t want to tell anyone where he’d been.

 

It was the next day that he saw Mickey’s text asking him who he was now and he replied that he was keeping a job and paying taxes and whatnot. Ian wasn’t quite sure what he had meant when he said, “this isn’t me anymore.” But then again, Ian rarely knew exactly what he meant or what he felt. He knew he felt things, and he knew he couldn’t continue on with Mickey, but, as with so many other moments in his life, he didn’t know how to put those feelings into words. The subtle impulses – the quickening of his pulse, the burning in his gut, the tension in his shoulders – what these were trying to tell him, and what they were called were a mystery to him. But he knew he could gain some relief and comfort through having sex, or he could numb the feelings that threatened to erupt by drinking a beer or smoking another cigarette.

 

He never got a response from Mickey. He thought about writing him again, but he didn’t know what to say.

 

As he lay in bed the morning after Monica’s funeral, he remembered his mother. He thought of the story he’d told at her funeral that conveyed her zest for life, he thought of how Frank loved her, and Ian thought of how their lives wove together sometimes, and then they’d be apart for a while. And he wondered if he’d cry about the death of his mother. Maybe tomorrow, he thought.

 

Ian was pretty sure something wasn’t quite right with him. He’d had this sizzling, terrifying, exciting and heartbreaking cross-country adventure with Mickey and barely felt anything. His mother had died, and he barely felt anything. He and his boyfriend of several months had broken up and he’d barely felt anything. He was sure he was on a down. He was sleeping more, not enthused about anything. He went to see his prescribing doctor at the clinic to discuss his meds, thinking that some med tweaking would hold the answer to his problems. Ian only mentioned his mother’s death when the doctor inquired if there were any situational causes for depression and the doctor looked at him with her kind eyes and said, “honey, sometimes it’s not bipolar symptoms, sometimes it’s just grief. Do you have anybody to talk to?” Ian was frustrated that the doctor wasn’t listening to him, that he clearly needed a med tweak, but he responded, “I have people to talk to,” and that was that.

 

The second week Ian was back at work, his boss Rita was at the station when he arrived. She checked in with him about how he’d been sick and then his mother had died. With the recent conversation with the doctor at the clinic, and now this, he was pretty pissed that people kept getting into his shit. But Rita seemed genuinely caring, and made it clear, “look, I don’t expect to be your confidante, I’m your boss. But I wanted to give you the name and number of a therapist that some of the EMTs have gone to see after a particularly traumatic accident or after a clusterfuck of issues has come down on them. She was really helpful for them, I could imagine it being useful, you know, supportive, right now.” Ian took the therapist’s business card and said thanks, and Rita pressed, “seriously, it would do me a world of good to know you were getting some stuff off your chest. You’re really good at what you do, and I’ve been at this a lot longer than you have and I’ve seen what this kind of work takes out of a person.” She paused for a beat and added, “and our employee assistance program gives you 6 sessions free of charge. Would you please at least consider it?” Ian assures her he will and pockets the card.

 

It’s a couple more weeks before he actually does call the therapist, but he does, more out of a sense of obligation to Rita than anything else. But also, because Sue told him that she and her husband were seeing a couples’ therapist and it was really helping. Sue was a big sharer, rarely edited herself, and volunteered personal information about herself without provocation. Ian would never be like that, but it felt more in the realm of something that was doable to hear that his co-worker was seeing a therapist. All he’d ever heard at home was “Gallaghers don’t do therapy,” but he was alert enough to see that the “Gallagher Way” may not be the healthiest and best way.


	2. and the therapy begins...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First two sessions of therapy

He arrives early to his first appointment. He punches in the code for the door and finds the door with the therapist’s name on it, Naomi Katz, and lets himself into the small waiting room. There are magazines on a small table and a fountain making soothing bubbling water sounds. The therapist comes out and introduces herself – she’s probably in her early fifties, with a short bob of silvery gray hair, tortoise shell glasses and a warm smile that makes him feel at ease immediately.

 

They enter the office and she directs him to a sofa that sits directly opposite her seat and side table. The lighting is dim, and the room is warm, and he feels the softness of the carpet beneath his feet and the comfort of the leather sofa as it holds him. He looks around the office at the art and knick knacks, books and fixtures, trying to get a read on Naomi’s personality, but she draws his attention back by asking, “what is it that brings you in?”

 

Ian takes a deep breath and starts, “I wanted to come in because I've been out of sorts the past few weeks, just not myself.”

 

“Do you know when this started?”

 

Ian rubs his hands on his thighs, only barely making eye contact, and answers, “yeah, it was right before Monica, my mother, died.”

 

“You call your mother by her first name?” Naomi asks. She occasionally writes some notes down, Ian had expected her to be scribbling away, but mostly she’s just there, looking at him attentively.

 

“Yeah, my mother was barely ever around while I was growing up, and when she was, it was kind of crazy,” Ian continues, telling the therapist about his relationship with Monica, how he'd been compared to her his whole life, and how he ended up inheriting her bipolar disorder. Naomi asks a bunch of questions about how long he’s been diagnosed, what medications he’s on, what his history with it all has been and what his history with therapy has been.

 

He tells her, “my sister raised me, raised all of us, really, and she had a few things she’s always say like, ‘you messed up? That just makes you a Gallagher’ or ‘Gallaghers know how to party,’ or ‘Gallaghers don’t do therapy.’”

 

“So it must have taken a lot for you to come in today.”

 

“Yes and no. I mean, I’ve been realizing the ‘Gallagher way’ sucks in a lot of ways. I think we all are trying to do better – I mean, I’m trying to have an actual career, my sister is going to a trade school, my brother is staying sober and trying to go to college, my older sister is starting to do real estate investments, and my younger brother is going to military school – none of these things are the ‘Gallagher way.’”

 

She asks more about his family, what it was like having so many brothers and sisters, what Monica was like, Frank, Ian’s living situation and what he likes about his work. Before he knows it, the end of his session has come and he agrees to come in next week to do it again. He thinks, it wasn't all that bad. She was nice enough. He even got a little teary talking about Monica. All in all, better than he expected.

 

Of course, talking about the period of time when he was diagnosed bipolar brings up memories of Mickey, but he wasn’t ready to tell that story yet.

 

At the start of Ian’s next appointment, he asks, “so, everything I say in here is confidential, right?” Naomi reviews the confidentiality rules and limitations, “if you tell me about child abuse, dependent adult abuse, or elder abuse, or if you are a danger to yourself or others then I have to get help outside this room” and Ian nods, then asks, “what about criminal activity?” and Naomi reassures him, “no, I can’t break confidentiality because of criminal activity, only if you tell me about a plan to hurt someone or their property in the future,” and Ian reads on her face that she is unfazed, so he asks, “so past criminal activity?” she shakes her head no, “and none of this will get back to my employer?” and she assures him it will not.

 

“What is this about, Ian?”

 

Not sure if he’s ready to dive into everything, he says, “it’s just – how I grew up, there was always something illegal going on, all the time.” She nods and states that she hopes he will feel comfortable to talk about whatever he needs to talk about.

 

Naomi tells Ian that she has been wondering about his medications, and asks if it would be OK for her to talk with his psychiatrist directly. “Oh, I don’t have a psychiatrist, I have always just gone down to the health clinic. I see a doctor there who prescribes my stuff.”

 

“You don’t have your own psychiatrist?”

 

“No, I mean, they’re a doctor, an MD and everything…”

 

“Ian, don’t you have health insurance through your job?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Well, you should be able to see a psychiatrist and have it paid for by your health insurance. I mean, policies vary, but psychiatric care for bipolar warants a lot of attention. You might want to find a psychiatrist who specializes in bipolar – there’s always new research and someone who specializes in bipolar would stay on top of that. And, no offense to the clinic, but I’d imagine they’re pretty overworked and you might not get the attention you deserve.” Naomi continued, explaining how therapists like her often collaborate with psychiatrists so that she can do the med management and they can do the prescription changes as needed.

 

Ian never knew any of this. No one had ever explained any of this to him before. She hands him a note with the names and numbers of some of her favorite psychiatrists to work with and he agrees to look into it.

 

As they get more into the session, Ian tells her how he'd been thinking more about Monica since their first session, and tells her, “she could make me feel SO loved when I was in her presence, even though she was so fucking absent for most of my life. Like, there was this time I was in military prison, and she had come to see me when I called and we left together when they released me, and we ate together at this truck stop and she just lavished love on me, telling me how beautiful I was, she seemed so proud of me. I had ached to feel that, to have someone look at me, and see me and my bipolar, and not see that as heartbreaking, but see it as just an enhancement to who I am.”

 

“Was this right around when you were diagnosed?” the therapist asks and Ian nods, and Naomi asks how other people looked at him once they heard he was bipolar. And Ian kind of freezes in that moment. He tries to recover, to play off what it is that this brings up. The look on Mickey's face when he broke up with him the first time. And realizes he has to tell her about Mickey for any of this to make sense.

 

“You know what? We have to start from the beginning,” Ian says and takes a deep breath. He tells her about his childhood, about his bipolar mother and alcoholic father. He tells her how he discovered Frank was not even his real biological father, that Ian was the spitting image of his “uncle” Clayton and that that may explain why Frank always hated Ian, why Ian was the only one of Frank’s 7 children (counting Sammi, and who knows if there were more) who Frank would physically abuse. Ian is quickly recounting the stories with a sly grin on his face, imagining this must be shocking to his therapist.

 

Naomi interrupts and says, “Ian, I need to slow you down here. Do you realize you’re smiling?”

 

“Well, yeah, I mean, I know how crazy this must all sound.”

 

“OK, but I want to ask you to slow down and actually _feel_ what you’re telling me. I would imagine if you were really _feeling_ the fact that your father beat you but none of your siblings, you might not be smiling.”

 

Ian concedes she might have a point but admits, “I’m not sure what I feel, I mean, this just _is_ , this is just how it always has been.”

 

“Yes, can you tell me what you feel in your body as you are telling the story?”

 

“Uhhhhh, in my body? I mean, I’m kind of hungry, is that what you mean?”

 

“See if you can feel anything else.”

 

“Ummmmm….” Ian closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and continues, “there’s a pressure on my chest,”

 

Naomi guides Ian to describe any and all small feelings in his body, and he finds they are subtler than feeling hungry. There is constriction and tightness in his shoulders, and as she encourages him to stay with the pressure in his chest and tightness in his shoulders, listening to what they might have to say, he says, “you know, I was never supposed to have needs, I was supposed to just be fine all the time, not make waves, not cause any problems.”

 

“Who demanded that of you?”

 

“Well, no one said it, but I could see what it did to Fiona and Lip when I was sick or hurt or whatever. I could see how overwhelmed they both were taking care of Debbie and Carl, and then Liam, when he was born.” Ian pauses and confesses, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how I feel.”

 

“This is probably why you’re here, don’t you think?” Naomi asks gently. Ian just nods.

 

After a pause, Ian adds, “I think it was really hard for me when I was really little, you know, trying to not have needs, I mean, when you’re a little kid you’re just kind of a bundle of needs, but I tried to be strong and independent.”

 

Naomi nods, “go on.”

 

“I think that’s why I became so captivated by Mickey from an early age. He grew up in the same neighborhood and had a _shitty_ fucking childhood, but he reacted to it differently than I did.”

 

Naomi interrupts, “are we getting off-track here, Ian?”

 

Softly Ian replies, “no, he’s what I need to talk about. I think I’ve been avoiding telling you about him because it’s – it’s overwhelming.”

 

“OK, you want to tell me about this Mickey?”

 

“I need to, I think,” Ian says, honestly.

 

Naomi says they have to stop because of time, but gives Ian a sheet with dozens of emotions on it, organized in different categories. She asks him to use it several times a day between now and their next session to see if he can find the word that best describes whatever emotion he is feeling at the moment he looks at the sheet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feeling super insecure about sharing this. Afraid it's not "entertaining" -- but in truth, I need to write this for me. I need to try to understand Ian Gallagher because he's become so flat and uni-dimensional in recent seasons. And I fucking love Mickey, so I need to understand Ian better.


	3. more therapy for Ian!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> captivated with Mickey...

In the next session, as promised, Naomi starts them where they left off, “OK, when do you remember first becoming captivated by Mickey?”

 

“We were on a little league team and he was like 8 years old and I was like 6, and he was so tough. And nothing seemed to get to him. He was defiant, strong, badass. His family had a reputation in the neighborhood – you know, they ran drugs, did robberies, breaking and entering, they were into some deep shit. Mickey had a bunch of older brothers, some cousins who were older than him, and there was his father and uncles. And there was his younger sister, Mandy. He may have been the youngest boy, but he was still a badass, even at 8 years old. I was scared of him, but I also looked up to him,” Ian thinks for a moment, “I think I wanted to be like him. We never ran in the same circles, except on this little league team – there was this time he took a piss on first base, and I was on second base, and it was so… cool. He just didn’t give a fuck, you know?”

 

“You wanted to be _tough_ like him?”

 

“Yeah, he was kind of my hero.”

 

Ian was impatient to talk about what had happened just over a month ago, but he knew she needed context, so he told the story of the first time he and Mickey fucked, explaining how he’d become infatuated with Mickey right away. He told the story of Monica coming to town and reaching for comfort from Mickey, and how Kash had discovered them together and shot Mickey. He talked about Mickey being locked up in juvie and going to visit him, and how he got a glimmer of Mickey reciprocating his interest for the first time, but shares how confusing it was to try to figure out if Mickey liked him or just liked to fuck him. He told about Frank walking in on them and how Mickey flipped out about his own father finding out, which required quite a lot of explaining about how fucking scary Terry Milkovich was. Ian looked at the clock and saw how little time there was left, and said, “look, he chose to get locked up in juvie again rather than face his father finding out he was gay, if that’s any indication.”

 

To which Naomi replied, “and chose a solution that protected you as well, by not harming your father. Now, Ian, we don’t have a lot of time left today, so I want to ask you what you’re feeling having shared what you’ve shared so far.”

 

Ian checked in with himself and replied, “I feel more alive. All of this is from my life before my diagnosis, before everything went to shit. And now, saying that, I feel a little sad.”

 

Naomi reminded Ian of her suggestions of how to shift his mood if he needed to, and her recommendation to journal and keep track of his emotions throughout the week. She reminded him that sometimes in therapy, it feels worse before it gets better. And they agreed to meet again in a week.

 

Ian was upset that time was up, all his emotions had started flowing. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. When he stepped outside, the world seemed brighter, louder, more intense.

 

Ian walked around for a long time after that session, just remembering what it had been like, what he had liked about Mickey back then, and how different he, himself, had been.

 

His week went by in a blur of activity – he was hyper-focused at work, even with a few very extreme calls. He knew it wasn’t mania, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. His brother Lip was doing his best to stay sober by seemingly always going to AA meetings. His sister Fiona was busy running the diner and her new real estate business. His brother Carl was away at military school. And his sister Debbie was living with her boyfriend. Only Liam was around the house, and that was only in the evenings since his private school had started an after-school program. Ian was left alone with his thoughts a lot – this was not a comfortable situation for Ian.

 

Naomi started their next session by saying, “I know we stopped right in the middle of you telling me about your friend Mickey last week, but before we get into that, I want to check in how this process is going for you. It can bring up a lot of stuff to share and talk about everything in your life, and it’s not unusual for the conversation to sort of continue in your head even once you leave here.”

 

“Yeah, that’s definitely happening. I haven’t really known what to do with all the thoughts,” Ian answered honestly.

 

Naomi offered some suggestions for alternatives to Ian’s confession of drinking maybe a little too much and going to clubs and hooking up with random guys. She reminded him of how seriously alcohol mixes with his meds and reminded him that he needs to routinely get his lithium levels checked to make sure his blood doesn’t become toxic. She asked if he had called an of the psychiatrists and he admitted he hadn’t, but promised he would in the coming week. And then she encouraged him to continue telling his story.

 

Ian was sure to tell Naomi about being in ROTC and how all he’d wanted to do for years was to become an officer in the military. He talked about the meaning and purpose it gave him – the hope that he could better himself, get out of the Southside and make something of his life. He told her about how it had become really clear really quick after Mickey got out of juvie the second time how much he truly did care for Ian, how Ian had started to feel more secure in their relationship. And then he told her about Terry walking in on them, and Svetlana. And this is where Naomi stops him and tells him to slow down and check in with what he’s feeling as he tells this part of the story. Ian finds tears coming to his eyes, that he can barely breathe, “I thought Terry was going to fucking kill him, or kill both of us, and the look on Mickey’s face as he watched me as I watched Svetlana fucking him, he couldn’t take it – how much it was hurting me.”

 

“That is a horrific scene, Ian,” Naomi says, clearly moved, wiping tears from her own eyes.

 

“It gets worse,” and Ian tells of Mickey shutting him out, beating him, “don’t blame him for that, he was traumatized, and had been drunk for days, and he was facing a future of living a lie and being married to his rapist. He was only 18.” Ian pauses, letting this wash over him. He’s imagining himself in Mickey’s shoes in that wedding for the first time, and it hits him hard. “And after that’s when I stole my brother’s identity and joined the Army and had what I now think was my first manic episode.”

 

Naomi asks if Ian thinks that the Terry trauma or the wedding may have triggered Ian’s first major depressive episode. He contemplates this for a moment and shrugs because he simply doesn’t know. They are both silent for a long moment.

 

Naomi asks, “what’s going on, Ian? What’s coming up for you?”

 

“I’m realizing I never put myself in his shoes. I never really thought about how he really had no choice, like what did I want him to do, stand up to his father? The guy who had already tried to kill him? Probably more than once? And Svetlana was already pregnant, that all happened at gunpoint, it’s not like he could have done anything differently then. I mean, I guess he could have told his dad he wasn’t going to marry her,” he trails off, “it’s just – I was such an asshole to him when I came back from the Army – and you know, he came to get me. Not my family. I mean, maybe they found me initially, but he’s the one who stuck it out and brought me home.” Ian is flooded with guilt, unable to do anything but stare at his hands. “You know, this is why I don’t really do feelings, this is really fucking uncomfortable,” and with that, Ian hugs his arms around his waist and cries.

 

Naomi reassures him it’s ok to feel his feelings, and to remember to have compassion for the teenage boy that he, himself, had been at that time, too, doing the best he knew how under impossible circumstances.

 

“I was high on a lot of drugs at that time, too, and manic as hell. Fuuuuuuuck,” Ian exhales slowly. “Mickey had been unattainable to me for such a long time, and something just shifted after the Army, he never wanted me to leave him again, and I did, I fucking left him again and again and again,” Ian practically wails, tears streaming down his face, his face in his hands.

 

When Ian’s weeping subsides, he clarifies for Naomi what happened in the Army, which she reflects back to him must have been terribly destabilizing for him given that that was the only purpose and future he’d ever envisioned for himself.

 

Ian continues, admitting that he’d manipulated Mickey into coming out by threatening to leave him again, “I knew that was his weakness – he couldn’t stand the thought of me leaving him again.” But he smiles as he tells her how Mickey did it and smiles dreamily saying, “he was magnificent, so fucking Mickey.”

 

Ian feels exhausted, but clearer than he ever has about his own history, at least up to that point in the story. He still hadn’t gotten to the last few years and his biggest questions. But he knew the session had to end and he was content to go home and go straight to bed.


	4. and he starts to work on his meds, too...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> coming back to life.
> 
> It hurts sometimes. 
> 
> (In Toni Morrison's Beloved, she has that wonderful theme: Anything dead, when it's coming back to life, it hurts)

He calls the psychiatrists and schedules an appointment with one who has an opening later that week. When he describes to Dr. Sturges how numb he has felt, the doctor suggests a minor tweak in his meds and Ian starts that immediately. The doctor also urges Ian to get labs done regularly and to reduce his alcohol consumption. Ian nods. He knows he should cut back. Whether he will or not, he’s not sure.

 

Ian gets his labwork completed, and buys a book a woman wrote about her own experience with bipolar. He falls asleep most nights after reading a few chapters.

 

Ian dreads the next therapy session, knowing that he has to tell Naomi about taking off with Yevgeny, and then taking off with Monica after military prison. He knows this isn’t confession, but since he isn’t an active Catholic, it’s the closest he’s ever come to it.

 

He fills Naomi in on what he has followed up on from their previous sessions and, rather than responding with, “good job, Ian!” as he’d expected, she responds instead by asking, “how does it feel to embrace your diagnosis more completely, and to really be willing to take care of yourself?”

 

“Huh, um… it feels good… empowering… and kinda… what is this? Lonely, I think. I mean, I feel like there are other people out there, like the lady who wrote the book I’m reading, who know what it’s like to live with bipolar, and they’re kinda my peeps now, like I may be in that club. But there’s nobody in my life who is with me in this.”

 

Naomi gives him space to let that register and asks questions to get Ian to describe it more vividly.

 

“Well, so, this is why I was kind of dreading coming in today,” Ian admits and then tells Naomi about shooting the porno, taking Yev and running when Mickey insisted he needed help. “Being on the psych ward was shitty, but in all honesty, I was so drugged up, I don’t remember much, but what I do recall is how Mickey responded. You know, I’d fucking kidnapped his son and ran off – again, exploiting his fucking Achilles heel by leaving him – and he may have gotten a bit freaked by my diagnosis, but he visited me in the psych ward, and when he did come to me when I got out of the psych hospital, he practically wouldn’t leave my side. He was ON it, you know, asking the doctors questions, going with me to appointments, getting me the vitamins they suggested, reminding me what I should and shouldn’t do on the meds…. And I fucking hated it…. I hated him for it. He was accepting this lifelong illness way before I was ready to. And he was saying ‘don’t drink coffee,’ or ‘no alcohol on your meds.’ It doesn’t sound all that bad right now, it’s what I’m actually doing for myself now. But at the time, I just wanted to pretend nothing was different.”

 

Naomi says, “Ian you’ve described that you always felt invisible – not as smart as Lip, needing to not have as many needs as Debbie, Carl, and Liam. Like you felt unremarkable in every way. You said you didn’t even get to have your clothes first. But then when attention did start to be on you, when you started to be in need because of the bipolar and the psychosis you experienced, you HATED that, like attention was such a foreign concept. You’d craved it – attention – but when you got it – from Mickey – you couldn’t stand the **way** it came. As if you were broken. You’d always been the one no one needed to worry about. All of a sudden you were the one every one tiptoed around – even your tough-as-nails boyfriend was unexpectedly soft and tender,” she pauses here to observe how Ian is taking this in.

 

After a long silence, Ian says, “yeah, that’s it.” He thinks and shares about how he likes being watched when it’s a projected self image he’s in control of – sexy, strong, capable, powerful. But when his vulnerability is seen, he just can’t handle it.

 

Naomi asks, “how do you react to it when you see other people’s vulnerability? Like when they admit how much they care for you, or when they confess they are afraid?”

 

“I don’t think I react negatively. I mean, I think I can be compassionate about it.”

 

“Except when it comes to Mickey? You’ve admitted that you played on his weakness of his fear of losing you, that you struggled with seeing his care for you. It makes some sense, right, if you consider how you’d kind of put him on this pedestal as the ultimate tough guy from when you were little.”

 

Ian considers this for a long while. When he finds words, he says softly, as recognition dawns, “Holy shit. I’m an asshole.”

 

“Oh Ian, I’m not saying that –”

 

But Ian puts his hand out to stop her, “no, I need to face this.”

 

He’s already decided that he’ll continue after the final EAP session is up – and they only have two more to go. He’s had so many details to share, he’s barely allowed his therapist to tell him anything, but when she does, she points out things Ian knows he would never see on his own. And he needs this. He’s starting to feel more like himself. He’s starting to _feel_ more. He starts to think this is why colors are more vivid, sounds are louder – he’s coming back to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lord help me. I hope this is useful for someone in addition to me!


End file.
